The present invention pertains to an animated cartoon method incorporating a method of motion picture branching as controlled with human skill. The action of the user switches the display to make the picture respond interactively. A plurality of means for such action are specified in this invention. The preferred means for embodiment herewith described is ultrasonic position detection or simulation. The system matches readouts from an ultrasonic transducer and microphone combination placed on the face of a television monitor, or at angles to the user's game action, and from digitally coded data on a videotape, disc, or film, all in the context of a video game or educational system.
Prior-art video game devices enable players to control video images via buttons, knobs, and control sticks or wheels. These operating devices exercise limited finger movements and in no way simulate the actions and skills required of the player in the real-life games simulated by the video games.
Prior art systems are unable to allow the player to strike, throw-at, hit, or shoot a gun at the television monitor and hit a moving animated character or object and change the action multiple times at fractional to several second intervals in the course of an animated scene according to accurate drama and according to the skill of the player or operator in so doing.
Prior art systems are unable to allow the user to swing a baseball bat, tennis racket, or other game instrument interactively in accord with the projected perspective of the animated scene, in front of the television monitor, and thus hit or change animated projectory according to a game or dramatics.
Another problem endemic to the prior art systems with digitally produced animation is the confined and restricted graphics which coincide with needlepoint art in the large grid squares. Primarily two dimensional, such digital animation is inferior to the camera-originated and the computor type animation of theatrical productions. Accordingly, it is the object of this invention to afford the three dimension effectiveness of the camera-originated type animation to video game grapics which are controlled by the player.
Prior art video branching systems use apparatus that switches between two or more channels or picture quadrants on the conclusion of a scene or dramatic action. Such switching depends on the viewer's judgement as expressed by pushing, buttons, other restricted video game controls, or a voice response as in the embodiment of U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,131 issued to Best. The result of such switching or branching is the beginning of another scene, episode, or game action. Different type actions can be animated in a transition number of frames into a common matching drawing that affords multiple branching, but these converging actions terminate the multiple different actions, and result in multiple beginnings of actions.
Accordingly, it is the object of this invention to provide an animation method that affords rapid and repeated switching from and to continuously radically different types of action smoothly, logically, and according to the dramatics.
Another object is to simulate the exact playing action, requiring the player to exercise the same muscular coordination, eye-hand coordination, and kinesthetic skills of the real-life game or dramatic action.
Other objectives are to create a camera-originated three dimension visual game simulation of the view from a player's eyes that approaches reality; and to accompany the foregoing with the audio voices of umpires, spectators, and scorekeepers together with the sound effects of the operator's and the animated player's action.